Beautiful Stranger
by teh liz
Summary: [rent 100] April and Marie are out and about, and April meets a beautiful stranger.


**Prompt:** 100. Writer's Choice ("Games," prompted by my friend Chale.)  
**Author's Notes:** If you think I own Rent, you need more help than I do. My progress chart is here. Last bit of this was written under the influence of Bailey's. Title from the Madonna song of the same name. I love it, sue me. Happy New Year!

April swayed gently on her feet where she stood a few feet from the bar, a strawberry daiquiri in hand and her other hand rubbing her forehead. Marie was looking around, seemingly heedless of her friend's infirmity. April wanted so badly to go back to the dorm and take enough Tylenol to level a horse before collapsing into her bed. Marie nudged her lightly and said, "Smile, you're in CBGB's!"

"Don't wanna smile," she said, almost pointedly putting out her lower lip. "I want to go home. Why are we here again?"

"We are here because this band came highly recommended by my Philosophy TA," Marie reminded her, listening as the set was completed.. "The Well Hungarians, he's roommates with the lead singer or whatever," she said over the roar of the crowd.

"Well I'm roommates with you but I don't – no, you know what, I'm feeling too sick to even be witty," April decided, sipping at the daiquiri.

Marie petted her friend's head gingerly. "I did a really good job on your highlights," she complimented, fingering the blonde streaks that now mingled with the reddish-brown.

"My mother's going to have a heart attack if they're not washed out by the time I go home for the summer," she murmured.

"The box did say thirty washes," Marie said. "It's early April, you have some time yet to get it out." She put the hair back down and lifted her Schnapps to her mouth. "Oh, and we're playing tonight."

"No, we're not," she groaned in return, rubbing her forehead. Marie and April had developed a contest of sorts, a game they played when they went out. They'd developed it around midterms, it entailed both of them employing any means necessary, usually feminine wiles, to see who could get a guy to buy them a drink first, simply for the glory of it all. Marie usually won, being the more outgoing of the two of them, although April remembered winning once, before Christmas. "You can play yourself and win and I'll congratulate you."

"Oh come on," Marie said.

"No, really."

"Please?"

"Please yourself."

"I do, on a regular basis. I have to do something while you're at your evening class."

"Too much information," April groaned. She should probably beat her head against the wall, it couldn't be much worse than the headache. The crowd gave uproarious applause as the band - _The Well Hungarians_, what kind of a name was that? – finished their set and stepped down for a break. In those few seconds, she closed her eyes and tried to find a place in her head that was not riddled with the pain of a headache that was either induced by a lack of food, caffeine, or possible hayfever. There wasn't one. "I'm going," she announced to Marie, trying to hand her daiquiri off.

"What? You can't go," Marie pleaded with a frown.

"I can. Watch me," she repeated. "Take my drink, attract a guy who likes really girly drinks."

"Listen to your sentence, have I ever met and liked a guy who would like a really girly drink?"

"Give it to a random guy, drink it, pour it down someone's pants, I don't really care," April said, blinking heavily.

"Down someone's pants? What is this, a Disney movie?" Marie asked with a typical tilt to her head.

"You get my point," April sighed.

"Yeah, I do," she said with a slight sigh of her own. "Okay, you'll be okay going back on your own?"

"Yeah, fine," she said, holding the drink out to Marie to take. Without so much as a warning, she felt something very heavy slam into her with the force of a speeding mack truck. She knocked into Marie and she felt the daiquiri spill onto their shirt fronts, chilly but not quite cold. Normally she wasn't the type to yell at a stranger, particularly in a bar, but today was not the best day April had ever had. "What the hell do you think you are _doing?_" she snapped, turning on the stranger.

"Jack, you fuck," the stranger gave an admonition of his own before he spun around to face April. Something in her blood jumped when they made eye contact, and she drew a fast breath. "Hey, sorry, Jack's just being a fucking moron, here." He had the most striking hazel eyes April had ever seen.

"Fine," she said, because she knew she had to say something before Marie started her tirade about whether either of them had grown up with any manners or been raised among heathens. "You're fine."

"_Fine?_ You're in public, do you think you could act like it instead of – wait a minute, you're the band," Marie said. "We've just been run over by the lead singer and guitarist of one of the best rising bands in New York."

The man apparently named Jack laughed, and the other who'd knocked into April gave a wide grin. "Oh yeah, who said that?" he asked.

"Collins."

"You two in one of his classes?" he asked, recognizing the mutual acquaintance.

"Just her," April motioned.

"I _tried_ to get you to take philosophy," Marie replied. "It's… like, actual _thinking._ So your thing."

"I told you philosophy was a major for people who didn't know what they wanted."

"Collins would take you up on that discussion," the man put in again. "You'd probably lose."

April's jaw dropped. "You hardly _know_ me and you're deciding whether or not I would lose a philosophy discussion?" The nerve! The absolute gall! The smile – dear _god_ when would she get it together? She could feel her headache returning with a vengeance.

"There isn't really a right side to philosophy, so it's not so much you'd lose as you'd talk yourself into a corner," Marie said contemplatively.

"You know what? My drink is all over my front, and my headache is killing me. I'm going," April announced.

"How about I buy you a drink since it looks like I wrecked your… what was it, a daiquiri?" he asked, checking the remains of her glass.

"You win," Marie leaned over and told her.

"What?" he asked, looking between them.

"Nothing," she replied, ignoring Marie. "Yes, strawberry. Are you a connoisseur of somewhat girly alcoholic drinks?"

"Former bartender, I've made a few in my day," he answered, taking her closer to the bar. "I'm Roger," he said, holding out a long-fingered hand for her to shake.

She grasped it firmly, trying to act slightly coy while her headache raged a little less and her shirt front was completely soaked with strawberry daiquiri. She got a small pleased feeling in the bottom of her stomach, and she smiled. "April."


End file.
